AHMM, December 2008 Read online

  Peta's eyes were wide with terror as I lifted the hood to cover her head.

  "Anna will live,” I whispered. It was the only kindness I could think to offer her.

  Peta gasped and shuddered as the cloth slid over her face.

  "Mama!” Anna screamed.

  John the Bailiff grabbed hold of her and held her back. He had already been named her guardian and he had promised me he would let her marry Oswin when a decent interval had passed.

  That was the only good thing to come out of our visit. The village and Sir Gerald had breathed a sigh of relief at Peta's confession. One death more than satisfied their sense of justice. Only Garrick's brothers had protested letting Anna live, and I trusted John would keep those two in check.

  I looked to Lord William and he nodded. His face was an expressionless mask; I had no idea what he might be thinking. Was he remembering a few pleasant hours spent fifteen years ago? Was he relieved his daughter would not join her mother in death? Was he sad that he could not save both of them? I had served my lord for years, but answers to these questions were beyond my knowledge of him.

  I looked to Lord William and he nodded curtly. I made the sign of the cross and kicked the stool out from beneath Peta. She fell heavily, the rope cutting off her cry but failing to break her neck. Her bound hands twisted terribly in a futile effort to reach the strangling cord.

  Poor Anna screamed again, as did several of the children.

  Others in the village freely wept.

  Peta hung struggling, swinging, twisting, gurgling in a most ghastly fashion until the strength finally left her body and her spirit ebbed.

  When her bladder finally voided, I knew she was truly dead. We left her hanging on the green—a terrible warning to all who would break the king's peace of the consequence of their action.

  Lord William placed a hand on my shoulder, and it took all of my force of will to smother the impulse to shake it off.

  His voice was a single notch above a whisper. “Thank you,” he said.

  The gesture was so unusual that I turned to face him.

  The expressionless mask on Lord William's face was still mostly intact, but there was just a hint of emotion peeking out from beneath it, a tightness in the crow's feet to either side of his eyes.

  "I'm sorry,” I replied, leaving it to him to decide what it was that I regretted.

  We never spoke of Alving again.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Gilbert M. Stack

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  Fiction: HAVEN'T SEEN YOU SINCE THE FUNERAL by Ernest B. and Alice A. Brown

  I'd jogged an easy warm-up pace past all the wharves converted into condos along Atlantic Ave, eased into a full run as I rounded the south end of Columbus Park, and was pounding back up Atlantic to my loft on Jackson when my cell phone rang.

  "Dymond here."

  "Valerie, is that you?” A man's voice. Hushed. Almost a whisper. “You sound so gruff."

  Caller ID on the screen said: UNKNOWN NUMBER—UNKNOWN NAME. I slowed my pace and strained to recognize the voice. “Who is this?"

  "Oh, don't slow down, Val,” he said in the same hushed whisper. “You were just reaching your stride."

  I did a quick check of the pedestrians around me. Back at Long Wharf, the seven fifteen from Quincy had just docked, and commuters were streaming through Columbus Park and pouring out across Atlantic Avenue. And almost all of them, it seemed, had a cell phone jammed against their head or tucked into their shoulder. But none of them showed any interest in me.

  I picked up my pace again and spoke into the phone. “Okay, who is this? What's the gag?"

  "No gag, Valerie. Been away for a while, just got back. Thought I'd give you a call. You look fantastic, by the way. I haven't seen you since the funeral."

  Despite the warmth of the morning sun, a tingling dread at the nape of my neck turned cold and crawled down my spine. My father's funeral was the last one I'd attended, and that had been two years ago.

  For half a minute there was silence on the line, then he spoke so softly I could hardly hear him. “Why so quiet, Val? I know you're there. I can see you're still holding the phone. And I can hear you breathing."

  "This is getting kind of old,” I said. “I don't hear a name in the next three seconds, I'm signing off. One..."

  "Now, Val, there's no need to get so testy. That lawyer must be working you too hard. Maybe you should have stayed on the police force."

  "Two..."

  "All right, Val, if that's the way you want it, bye-bye for now, but I'll be seeing you."

  The way he whispered, “I'll be seeing you,” sent another shiver down my spine. If the creep was trying to give me goose bumps, he'd succeeded. And I could still feel him out there somewhere, watching.

  I snapped my head around to scan the buildings across the street, but all the windows were a blinding gold reflection of the early morning sun.

  What the hell's the matter with you, girl? Getting spooked by some whispering weirdo on the phone who knows your name. I shook my head, picked up my pace, and concentrated on my breathing.

  I got my rhythm back and started thinking. I had just cleared Columbus Park when he said he hadn't seen me since the funeral. And by the time he told me that he could see I still had the phone in my hand and could hear my breathing, I was almost back to Battery Wharf. To keep me in sight for that distance, he had to be running along behind me.

  Or following in a car.

  I spun around, running backwards, and checked the street behind me. No one, running or otherwise, was there. But I caught a glimpse of the tail end of an electric blue Dodge Neon as it turned off Atlantic Ave at Hanover and disappeared around the corner.

  * * * *

  Fed up with the politics, the good-old-boy network, and the testosterone-laden air, I'd quit the Boston Police Department six years ago and gone to work as a part-time investigator, full-time secretary/receptionist, and all-around runner of errands for an ambulance-chasing attorney on State Street. And in three short years—along with more insight into sue-an'-settle litigation than you'd ever get in law school—I'd satisfied the State's requirement of “not less than three years as an investigator” and applied for my own license. That was also the year my dad retired from the police department.

  He took early retirement eleven months after Sebastian Cass, a small-time drug dealer he had arrested, got shanked by another prisoner in county lockup while awaiting trial. With his sobbing wife Maria, who swore he was innocent, his sixteen-year-old son Angelo, who screamed police brutality, and a three-network media contingency at his side, Sebastian Cass died a week later.

  There had been two other police-related deaths that summer—bungled arrests that ended with the suspects being shot—and the mayor, the media, and all five gubernatorial hopefuls in that year's election were pointing fingers and hollering reform.

  For Dad, the incidents themselves were bad enough, but the daily hounding on TV and in the papers was more than he could stand. Disheartened, he retired.

  Being on the job had always been Dad's reason for getting out of bed each day. And when he quit the force, he lost his sense of purpose and sank into depression. He caught a cold he couldn't shake that winter and wound up in Mass General with pneumonia. And not quite thirteen months into his retirement, Dad died.

  * * * *

  I didn't give my whispering weirdo much thought again until late the next afternoon on my way to a strip club with the subtle name of Bottoms Up. I had a subpoena tucked in my bag for a no-show witness named Ezekiel Jones, and I'd spent the better part of an increasingly overcast day trudging in and out of a dozen dingy strip joints looking for him.

  The way he whispered, “I'll be seeing you,” sent a shiver down my spine.

  I'd picked up a tip that Ezekiel liked to spend a lot of time watching the ladies undress, so I'd gone online and put together a list of all the titty bars and strip joints I could find in the Greater Boston area. Bottoms Up was the last one
on my list. It shared space with a cut-rate package store in an other-wise abandoned shopping mall tucked into a corner somewhere near the border of Everett, Revere, and Chelsea.

  I'd crossed high over the Mystic River on the Tobin Bridge, and as I descended into Chelsea, I looked out across the rooftops down a line of stubby chimneys sprouting from the tar-and-gravel roofs like a row of tombstones, and remembered where I'd first served papers on the elusive Ezekiel Jones.

  I try to go through the Globe and the Herald front to back every day, and I'd thought I was one sharp lady P.I. the morning I'd spotted Ezekiel's name as the sole surviving son in his father's obituary. On the day of the service, I parked outside the funeral parlor, followed the procession to the cemetery, and bagged Ezekiel as he and his mother were leaving.

  But Zeke's mother proved pretty sharp herself. She had found out where I lived and was waiting for me outside my door the next morning breathing fire.

  "My son had nothin’ to do with that guy gettin’ shot—” throwing the balled-up subpoena in my face “—an’ no way am I gonna let you get him killed.” She had the husky voice of a heavy smoker and the withering glare of an avenging angel. “He won't be showin’ his face in no courtroom."

  And I didn't have any better luck with the criminal defense attorney who'd hired me when I told him what had happened, either. He'd needed Ezekiel as the key witness for the defense in a murder trial and had hired me to find him.

  "Were there any witnesses besides his mother when you served him?” he asked.

  "No. No witnesses. I thought it might be just a tad insensitive to barge into the cemetery and slap the paper on him as they were lowering his father's casket into the ground. I waited outside until the service was over and grabbed him as he and his mother were leaving."

  "But nobody actually saw you hand him the papers?"

  "Just his mother."

  "So, when he swears he wasn't served, it's only your word against his?"

  "Yeah, I guess, but—"

  "Then you're gonna have to serve him again."

  I'd not only lost the ensuing argument about why I had to serve the subpoena a second time, I'd failed to convince him he should pay me twice if I did.

  And that's how come—putting in a long day for short money chasing down Ezekiel Jones for the second time—I happened to remember my weirdo on the phone again.

  Down a ramp off the bridge into Chelsea. A row of chimneys like tombstones—

  ...been away for a while, just got back...

  Caught up with Ezekiel the first time outside a cemetery in Jamaica Plain—

  ...thought I'd give you a call...

  Came out of hiding to bury his father—

  ...you look fantastic, by the way ... haven't seen you since the funeral.

  * * * *

  I pushed through the doorway, stopped as it swished closed behind me, and let my eyes adjust to the gloomy interior. Along the wall to my right, a handful of guys sat drinking bottled beer with their backs against the bar. They, and the dozen or so patrons at a scattering of tables, were paying rapt attention to a small stage where a nearly naked redhead was making apathetic love to the ubiquitous brass pole. I headed for the bar.

  Wearing khakis, a muscle shirt, and tattoos up both arms, the guy slinging beer at this end of the bar obviously spent a lot of his time pumping iron. Probably popping steroids too. But I'd have bet the farm he couldn't spell it. Without a doubt he doubled as the bouncer.

  The other bartender—khaki cut-offs, a cropped white tank top, and a ton of makeup—looked every bit as bored as the redhead who worked the pole. I made my way down the bar and climbed up on a stool in front of her. The nametag pinned over one of her more than ample breasts read MICKIE.

  She gave me a blank look. “What'll it be?"

  "Beer's good."

  "Bud, Bud Light, Miller Lite, or Coors?"

  "I'll take a Miller Lite."

  She pulled a Miller Lite from a chest beneath the bar, popped the top, and set the bottle down in front of me. No napkin, no glass. “That'll be nine bucks."

  I'd done this so many times today that I had it down pat. I had stacked a twenty dollar bill, my P.I. license, and Ezekiel's picture together in my bag. I slipped the little bundle out and laid it on the bar with the twenty on top.

  I was the only female patron in the place, and from the other end of the bar, Mr. Muscles was watching me with a snarl on his face that said dyke. I leaned forward, put my arm on the bar so he couldn't see what I was doing, and with my little finger slid the twenty sideways so Mickie could see my license. She leaned forward, squinted at my picture on the license, then looked up at me and scowled. I slid my license sideways and tapped Ezekiel's picture a couple of times. When she looked down at his picture, I nudged the twenty toward her and said, “What d'ya say, Mickie, seen him around?"

  She looked up and nodded.

  "Today?” I said.

  Another nod.

  "When?"

  She smiled, scooped up the twenty, and tipped her head toward the back of the room. “Dipshit's in the john right now."

  I jammed Zeke's picture and my license back in my bag and hopped off the stool.

  So, the cheapskate who'd hired me wanted witnesses. Okay. I grabbed a chair from an empty table and dragged it to the men's room. I yanked the door wide open, slamming it against the wall, and propped it open with the chair.

  From behind the bar, a scowling Mr. Muscles jabbed a finger at me and yelled, “Hey!” But he couldn't seem to make what he was looking at compute. He just stood there with his mouth hanging open, poking holes in the air with his finger.

  "Well, if it isn't Ezekiel Jones,” I said as I walked into the men's room.

  He jumped and turned away from the urinal, saw me standing there with the door propped open, and bent almost double getting tucked away. I stepped up to him, rolling the subpoena up lengthways, and jammed it down into his unzipped trousers. “Consider yourself served, Zeke,” I said. “And the spooky phone call? Not convincing. Laid it on way too thick."

  He stood there gaping at me with a puzzled frown.

  I shook my head and turned to leave. “Careful you don't rip anything zipping up,” I said.

  When I walked out, Mickie was sipping from my Miller Lite and doing everything she could to keep from laughing. As I walked by, she pumped her fist and mouthed, “Yes."

  I gave her a wink, shot Mr. Muscles with my finger, and walked out the door.

  And even though gray streaks of cloud were trying hard to block the sun, by the time I hit the parking lot I felt like singing. I had located Ezekiel Jones and served him—within twenty-four hours this time—and thought I'd solved the mystery of my whispering weirdo.

  * * * *

  I climbed into my aging Honda, coaxed the engine to life, and was adjusting the rearview mirror when I caught a glimpse of an electric blue Neon pulling out of a space a couple of rows behind me. I buckled up, backed out of my space, and took off after the Neon with my heart thumping in my throat. But by the time I made it to the exit, the Neon was gone. I sat there shaking with my jaw clenched so tightly my teeth hurt and pounded on the steering wheel.

  I'd put in a hard five working the streets of Boston in a P.D. blue-and-white, another three tracking down witnesses and cherry-picking testimony for a trip-and-fall attorney, then the last three on my own ticket doing messy little odd jobs for lawyers who didn't want to get mud on their Guccis or muss up their hair. I thought I was capable of remaining reasonably cool, relatively calm, and fairly well collected. So why was I letting this weirdo push all my buttons?

  * * * *

  I had crossed back over the Tobin Bridge into Charlestown, swung around up onto Rutherford Ave, rattled out over the upper end of the Inner Harbor on the antiquated Charlestown Bridge, and was sitting there stuck in traffic in the shadow of the soaring concrete spires and splayed cable-stays of the Lenny Zakim Bridge when my phone rang. I plucked it out of the cup holder without think
ing.

  "Yeah, Dymond here."

  For a couple of seconds, only the hiss of electronic white noise ... then the soft voice, “Val, you always sound so angry."

  And in that instant, in one of those intuitive flashes, I knew what was causing my anger and why. The hushed voice, not being able to see him or know who he was, had touched on something primal, some primitive foreboding of unseen things that prowl in the dark. I wasn't really pissed off at myself or the creep on the phone. The anger was nothing more than a blind reaction to fear. And I'm not that easily frightened, either. But I'd let that hushed, disembodied voice on the phone get to me. Time to turn this thing around.

  "Hey, Skippy,” I said. “How's it going?"

  Silence ... then, “Don't call me that, Val."

  "What do you mean, don't call you Skippy?"

  More silence.

  "Okay, so what do you want me to call you?"

  "Come on, Val, I know you know who I am."

  "Probably do, if I wanted to bother taking the time to think about it, which I don't. So why don't you give me a clue."

  "I'm hurt you don't remember, Val. It's only been four years."

  "Look, Skip, I've had a busy day and I'm tired, so get to the point. Did you call to play guessing games, or did you just get tired of pulling the wings off of flies?"

  The couple of seconds of dead air that followed felt more like a couple of years. And when he came back on the line, the hushed whisper had taken on a nasty hiss. “You shouldn't speak to me that way, bitch."

  "Bitch? Oh, Skippy, now you've gone and hurt my feelings. I mean, really. What happened to that nice throaty ‘Vaahl'?"

  The hiss became a snarl. “You will regret that; you will regret mocking me."

  "Now, you're not threatening me here, are you, Skippy?"

  "To disregard the pain of others is callous,” he said, “but to inflict pain is evil. And evil must be punished."

  "What evil? I have to tell you, Skippy, you're starting to sound like an old Vincent Price movie, here. But let me give you—"

  "Evil is spawned by evil,” he cut in, “and you are—"